#41

Do you mean 1/4 inch jacks?

Yeah that should be doable, you’d just need to freewire the connections and come up with a way to mount the jacks

2 Likes
#42

btw i really like the fact that you went with mini jacks :smile: as also I primary would use it with Eurorack.

3 Likes
#43

Just weighing in on RPi 3+ vs 4, the rPi 4 has much higher power demands and requires a USB-C power cable or adapter. Also note “smart” USB-C cables (like on the Mac book pro) won’t work. So I’d suggest most people factor buying a power supply and cable into the cost and if you want a portable rig make sure your battery pack can handle it.

#44

The most recent revision of Fates has a USB-C power jack out the back of the board - to support the power needs of the pi4. Power input goes straight to the 5v GPIO on the Pi.

I just spent the last 3 hours re-working the board to support smart/e-marked USB-C cables for power input (proper 5.1K resistors on both the CC1 and CC2 pins). So… this will “fix” the error that Raspberry Pi foundation has with the current pi4.

(FWIW - it was a bitch to find a thru-hole solderable USB jack that non-robots could solder - and I had to create the eagle footprint for this from scratch)

The power jack on the Fates board is optional and you can choose to power the Pi directly instead.

3 Likes
#45

Along with the higher power demands, the RPi 4 runs at a higher temperature. Additional cooling measures may be required:

https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2019/raspberry-pi-4-needs-fan-heres-why-and-how-you-can-add-one

#46

With great power, comes greater thermal buildup.

5 Likes
#47

Yeah - the pi4 has been kinda toasty so far. I’ve not really monitored the temps yet while running norns.

I also added a 5v/gnd header pin for breaking out power. I was thinking this could be used for a fan, but it could also be used for a battery connection

Now the question might be - will a fan fit somewhere in this setup? Not really sure yet. These 30x30x8mm fans would be a tight fit between the fates board and the pi. Maybe I should add some holes in the dead space of the board next to the encoders. Hmmm… Guess I should order a fan and see if it can fit

4 Likes
#48

Ive got a rPI4 coming, but yeah Ive similar reservations about heat issues esp. once you start putting this into a closed enclosure.

if its just/mainly for Norns (or Orac) use, then the newer rPI3b+ is already more powerful than the CM3/CM3+ used by Norns/Organelle-m - so sticking with that seem best for ‘compatibility’

of course, a rPI4 solution is definitely the ultimate future… but yeah, I think its going to need a bigger form factor to get the fan in, and perhaps many will still prefer a quieter (passive cooling) of the rPI3b+
dunno, early days for rPI4 i think.

for those building this, add the extra (4th) encoder if you have intentions of running/trying Orac.
the interface for Orac will expect it.

this is because, I want to have a similar UI to the organelle, where we have immediate access to 4 parameters, that are then paged .
if we only have 3 encoders, Id likely end up going the route of a scrolled parameter list, like norns, but I find this much less immediate - so I really don’t want to do this.
(and to provide both, would essentially mean writing 2 completely different UIs, something I don’t plan to at the outset)

my hope is to have the dev version of Orac with Fates UI around mid Sept, hopefully release in October? (but dev plans can change :wink: )

as an ‘added’ bonus, I might in norns (in my fork) add support for the 4th encoder - e.g. perhaps use it as a master volume knob… so that is always available. id personally find this really useful!
(or perhaps I might make it freely assignable, kind of like a midi map?!)

anyway, huge credit to @okyeron for his work on this,
I think generally the rPI has been crying out for a ‘hat’ that provides screen/encoders and decent audio in a small form factor - and this is great.

its a simple/quick build (esp. if the SMD bits are pre-done) , components are inexpensive, so a really affordable solution.
personally, I see this project as really useful for lots of projects, I think ‘DIY norns DAC board’ is really selling itself short!

(*) the only current alternative I know of is Zynthian, but it’s a bit bulkier, more expensive (?) , and its screen leads to a different kind of ‘product’. that said v3 is very cool too, so definitely has its place too alongside Fates :slight_smile:

15 Likes
#49

FWIW - checking temps on the pi4* right now… temp=66-67’C at idle or with a basic script like “awake” playing (CPU ~1-8%).

* pi4 has a heatsink on the processor. Case is open sided (just with top and bottom acrylic panels)

2 Likes
#50

This might be of interest (just from someone I follow on Twitter - nothing to do with me)

Includes lots of info on pi4 temperature performance

BTW awaiting Fates with interest :slight_smile:

4 Likes
#51

yeah, its a pretty serious leap in performance :slight_smile:

tomshardware did a review of heatsink and fan which was interesting…

fan seems to solve it, but will it lead to noise?
Im wondering if perhaps for a musical application, perhaps a compromise.
stay passive with a heatsink, and perhaps under clock the rPI4 a bit.
if we throttle a bit, we’ll reduce heat/power , but still have very healthy jump in performance.

generally, I think as @okyeron indicted, probably we need to watch under a number of circumstances to see how much of an issue this is.

isn’t norns back to processing being mainly done on one core (for SC), with just a bit on another (the mixer/softcut element … oops, name escapes me at the moment) , so for now might not be a big issue?!

anyway, I get my rPI4 next week… but now realise im going to need to order a fan/heatsink to use it in anger :slight_smile:

5 Likes
#52

“Mixed signal design” is a whole discipline unto itself, where physics of components and interactions change as you go from ground (0 Hz) to LFO to audio to kHz bus speeds to MHz processor speeds. Lots of ground plane, routing noisy digital stuff away from analog lines, and decoupling capacitors near chips are standard starting points, but it’s deeep.

2 Likes
#53

I’m
So excited at the idea of running Orac on one of these. But I’m curious, could Orac, on something like the FATES board, run synth engines with readouts much like an organelle? Would it have the ability to generate sounds from processing in the Pi, as well as be modulated by other PD scripts all on board? Or would it mainly be for sending modulation info to a organelle and not generating the sound? Or would it be capable of both??? It’s such a cool system, but I regularly wish I could just have a voice convo with you and ask a million dumb questions to better wrap my head around all Orac is and could be!!

1 Like
#54

Orac will do what Orac can do. You can run Orac2 on a RasPi right now to see what those capabilities are.

I would not expect some magic interaction of norns and orac together. It’s gonna be one or the other.

What happens with the display on Fates + Orac? We’ll need to see what @TheTechnobear comes up with for that. I reckon it will be similar to what you get with Orac2 on the Organelle hardware.

2 Likes
#55

Yeah, I had mainly just asked in assumption of buying two FATES boards, ones for Orac, one for norns. I guess the question I’ve got mainly refers to how Orac will play on a FATES as well as what it does in general (which is pretty esoteric, but VERY cool).

#56

I plan for Orac on the fates board initially to be a similar UI to the Organelle (changes reflecting slight differences in hardware e.g. buttons vs push encoder) , and so a very similar experience to the organelle, minus the Organelle keyboard… which is not an issue since Orac already has full midi support.

it will be very cool … frankly i won’t release it until I like it, and feel its ergonomic to use.
(hence why i won’t promise a release date)

as for modulation, all sorts of fun possibilities - currently there is midi modulation thru midi learn - so if you can send midi in from another process on the rPI, you can use that for modulation.

also for 2.1 I’ve added some ‘cv tools’ so if you have a DC coupled audio interface you can send notes/modulation thru cv … if i get time, i also want to look at supporting CV over AC audio

oh, and orac can already be controlled/modulated remotely by OSC :wink:

generally, the modulation stuff will be getting a revamp in orac… might be post 2.1 though
once that’s done, i’ll create some more interesting modulation modules e.g port MI marbles!

Anyway, on my YT channel soon, you’ll see that Orac is starting to hit a bit of a milestone for me, where I’m personally able to use it much more for what i want (musically) - this in turn means I’ll tend to give it more time.

but back on topic…
FATES is exciting to me, since the rPI really needs a user interface ,
my personal feeling has been the remote interface has been an interesting ‘taste’ of orac for many rPI users, but many want something more immediate - something hands on like they get with the Organelle.

as for norns/orac - as @okyeron said, initially i see it running one or the other,
but perhaps i might look at some possibility of integration later.

there is a nice ‘side effect’ of Orac 2.0 on the rPI currently… it was designed to be run headless i.e without a display … so you can already connect/disconnect the display from Orac whilst its running!

so… we could already start Orac headless, and have norns ‘driving’ orac via osc.

the only element missing is the ability to mix the audio, but even that is not a really issue, since jack allows mixing, and also the work thats been done on crone recently is possibly going to allow for external processes audio to be mixed into norns.

… then its all just a matter of CPU, hence why the rPI4 might become important/interesting!

as always, there’s options and possibilities - we just need the will to make it so :wink:

4 Likes
#57

Amazing. Thanks for all that input. It actually helps improve my all ready mental grasp on Orac to begin with. Again, at times it feels like it defies explanation, and a built in HUD would go a long way to making it more palatable to someone like myself. I am really excited for this whole project and would love to get two FATES boards (if not more) when the project allows. Having one norns on a Pi3, one running Orac 2 would give a huge amount of potential for fun sound and interesting interaction methods!

#58

yeah, im really interested in this ‘multi board’ type setup … its something ive quite a few ideas about (partly due to my background in distributed systems and comms i guess)

particularly , as ive now got orac running on my organelle and rPIs, but also in modules on my eurorack… now the distributed messaging that underlies orac (called mec/kontrol) becomes very interesting.
i see this as fun for a couple of reasons, but ‘obvious’ ones are… cross ‘module’ modulation/control - but also the concept of a command centre/control … where you start viewing the orac chains as distributed chains across hardware …
(this is also the route to how orac will become multi core on a single machine)

anyway, this won’t be modular specific , its about how to combine oracs (etc) running on different platforms what ever/where ever they may be

3 Likes
#59

Mark, will Orac benefit from a Pisound, or will a Pi 3b+ suffice? I use Orac on an Organelle, but the CPU struggles with some patches :slight_smile:

Cheers!

#60

Congrats on the project @okyeron!
For sometime I would like to add a rPi to my setup; it seems these are becoming THE days :wink:
I always try to be as much as possible, supportive, as @TheTechnobear is aware (from Axoloti to mec to orac…)
Best of luck!

1 Like